The invention is in the field of hand operated devices for slitting fabric or similar sheet material into strips and is particularly suitable for use by hobyists for conveniently slitting surplus fabric or similar sheet material into strips for use instead of yarn in tufting or weaving rugs by hand.
In hobby activities such as tufting or weaving rugs it is often desirable to cut otherwise unneeded fabric or similar sheet material into strips that can be used instead of yarn. While there are many industrial devices for slitting sheet material into webs or strips, they are typically not suitable for home use by hobyists because of their size and cost and because they are designed for slitting uniform pieces of sheet material rather than the odd-sized, surplus fabric pieces typically used by the hobyists. Since a hobyist may need a substantial length of such fabric strips in an activity such as weaving a rug, using shears to cut the strips is time consuming and tiring. There is a need therefore for an inexpensive and simple device which would be convenient for home use in cutting fabric and similar sheet material into strips, and the invention is directed to providing device of this type which is inexpensive, simple to mount on a table top and to remove, safe and simple to operate, convenient to adjust for cutting strips of different width, and easy to maintain. There are some prior art hand-operated devices for shredding or slitting sheet material (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos 3,883,953 and 3,709,081), but such devices typically do not have sufficient versatility, sufficiently low cost or sufficient ease of use for widespread use by home hobyists.
The invented device comprises a generally V-shaped bracket having two legs forming a generally V-shaped notch therebetween. One leg fits over the top surface of a table top and the other leg goes under the undersurface of the table top. A wedge is inserted between the bottom leg and the table top to fixedly secure the bracket to the table top. A blade unit is removably secured to the top leg of the bracket and comprises a convex, hollow blade support cover and a convex blade support nesting in it. The blade support has several rows of projections supporting a row of blades each extending from the back towards the front of the device and sloping upwardly in moving toward the front. A portion of the sharp edge of each blade protrudes through a corresponding slot in the blade support cover. An L-shaped guard bar has a horizontal arm extending over the blade portions protruding through the blade support cover and a vertical portion frictionally received in a sleeve extending from the side of the device.
The device is easily secured to a table top by hand, without the need for any tools, and is easily disassembled by hand and without tools to change blades or to change the relative positions of the blades so as to cut strips of a different width. The blade unit is secured to the top bracket leg by a key and groove connection and is removed from the bracket by sliding it backwardly and out of the bracket. The blade support is then removed by hand from the blade support cover to expose the blades held thereby. The blades are in blade slits formed by projection extending from the top surface of the blade support. The projection forming a blade slit are offset from each other along the length of the slit so that a blade support with slits for retaining thin blades can be formed by a process such as molding a thermoplastic material.